http://www.tamesideadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/1064358_i_will_never_put_my_pet_zack_down

My local paper posted this reply by the boxer owner (in pedigree dogs exposed) Am I losing the plot or did the programme state he was fitting several times a day NOT according to his owners hes not.

Amazing how they managed to film TWO episodes then.........the film crew just HAPPENED to be there....... Something's not right.

I feel sorry for the lady, she probably thought they were ging to educate and not slander on the documentry but that is the way of telly isnt it, tell you one thing and then edit and show another
Agree with MarianneB tho, how did they catch those 2 fits unless it was another dog they filmed which looks like him which wouldnt be too far fetched would it?! Or they could have been hanging around for ages waiting for a fit, who knows.

Im glad she hasnt had her boy put down, dont know what those people are thinking of telling her to her face to have him put down with no regard to how she feels or how their dog is when its not fitting, people need to be able to see through these programmes and not just soak it all up like a wet sponge.

when I watched the programme i wondered if they had taken the dog off his meds for the filming as it did seem like a total coincidence that he was fitting when the film crew were there.

Perhaps the owners had filmed the episodes themselves, to show to their vet etc.. It is not unusual in this day and age for documentary makers to use home video, or even material filmed on mobile phones. As I recall some of the "nastier" episodes shown looked rather poor quality, in terms of the picture resolution that is.

As a fitting dog should be kept in a quiet dark calm place, I'm not at all surprised he went into a 2nd fit with all the running around, screaming and glaring lights for the cameras!

Sorry Lucy, I don't want to seem pedantic but lights would not be put up by a crew for this kind of filming.

Lighting is only really used in this kind of documentary for set pieces like interviews. It is more than likely that there would only be three people in situ, at the most: the producer, a camera person (very small cameras these days) and a sound person. Often the producer will do sound as well as interviews, so only two people. Definitely no running around or screaming. Because of the advent of fly on the wall filming in the 90's equipment and filming techniques became increasingly unobtrusive, so people will literally forget filming is going on.

I really don't think we can blame this dogs fitting on the filming. As I said before, it is possible that the owners themselves filmed it.

> Perhaps the owners had filmed the episodes themselves

That's what I assumed - only because the man appeared to be in boxer shorts and a vest. Surely if the camera crew had been there he would have been dressed. I also wouldn't have thought the camera crew would want to spend a days filming waiting for the dog to have a seizure. The footage wasn't great quality either and didn't look professional.

I'm unclear why the woman agreed for her dog to appear on the programme then...surely she wanted to make a point that her dog is unhealthy because of his breeding. The footage shown was certainly distressing for all concerned - dog, owner and us the viewers. Why she is surprised at the backlash she's receiving now is a mystery to me - people are going to make assumptions based on what they saw in the programme. If she thinks the footage has mislead the public, why hasn't she put in an official complaint to the BBC?

Whether it was the filming or not -the man was constantly touching the dog. That doesn't help and can in fact make it worse. A fitting dog you stay close to and supervise but leave alone. I have one.

Why arernt you allowed to touch the fitting dog?
Is it because they may bite you etc? Or it scares them even more?

Because in one of those fitting scenes you can see blood on his arm where the dog has caught him while fitting and I have to say the way he wrestled it to the floor was even more worrying then the actual fit, the fit I could handle watching just fine as it was informative on condition I have never expieranced etc and I took mental note of all signs of fitting incase it ever happenes to me and I know what to look for, but the way he jumps on top of the dog and keeps on jumping on it was just horrible and dangerous for the dog and him and clearly un needed from what Marianne has said!

Yes you're in danger of getting bitten and it will usually agitate the dog more than not being touched. A fitting dog should be kept as quiet as possible for the episode to pass as quickly as possible.

Thats what we thought when we watched it, they seemed to stress out the dog even more by jumping on him and trying to hold a Boxer down cant be fun for the owner or the dog espicially when fitting
So as the orogramme was about the problems with peds, are ped boxers more prone to epileptic attacks?

Epilesy isn't a major problem in Boxers (I couldn't see why they picked the Boxer for this as our breed suffers more with hearts
and cancer than epilepsy) and I've spoken to our breed's genetic expert and it's not very common in the breed.

Is it something that is genetic and can you test for it?

One of the items in the dog press this week - I think Jemima Harrison's? - stated that there were no film crews and the owners filmed the Boxer and the Cavalier.

M.

>Is it something that is genetic and can you test for it?

Sometimes there seems to be a hereditary element to the condition, but sometimes it appears out of the blue, in dogs whose parents and grandparents were known not to be sufferers, and no amount of research can find an ancestor with it. Fits can be triggered in all animals (including all of us) under certain conditions; the only difference between 'fitters' and 'non-fitters' is the threshhold at which they'll occur.

And no, there is no test for it. That's why it's best to wait till an animal is about 3 years old before breeding from it, because by then it's usually clear whether or not a dog is affected.

I'm sure no-one will mind if I state that,to my knowledge, I have not had one single case of epilepsy in 28 years of breeding boxers.

Thanks for the info JG,I have a friend with a crossbreed that fits but to her knowledge neither of the parents do.I did wonder about why it was included in the show at all.

Have Boxer breeders managed to eradicate Progressive Axonopathy?

No new cases for quite some time (years) in GB so the draconian measures taken by responsible breeders nipped that one in the bud.

Yes it has been so for a good number of years.
At least Dr Cattanach has not advised of any new cases in the UK.

This was done with the collaboration of both the breed council and the Boxer breeders.
Some kennels spayed/castrated most of their breeding lines and had to start over.

This success story wasn't shown to jo public as to what can happen when all work together
to help eradicate health problems in their breed.

>I did wonder about why it was included in the show at all.

Me too, Charlie. Epilepsy has zilch to do with KC registration or pure-breededness (if that's a new word, I copyright it!) so its inclusion can only have been to cast a slur on the KC.

basically when a dog or anything seizures, the brain goes into overdrive and the slightest stimuli becomes 1000 times magnified, so we always tell owners, switch all lights off, switch off tvs radios etc, keep quiet, do not touch patient. be nearby yes, and perhaps put a blanket under head if banging, and wait on them coming around, basically, they done everything wrong in the programme!

>Yes it has been so for a good number of years.

At least Dr Cattanach has not advised of any new cases in the UK.

This was done with the collaboration of both the breed council and the Boxer breeders.
Some kennels spayed/castrated most of their breeding lines and had to start over.

This success story wasn't shown to jo public as to what can happen when all work together
to help eradicate health problems in their breed.>

Which is exactly why I brought it up

i found it a bit odd the owners said 'there there' whilst he was fitting, surely they know he is unconcious at that point and cant hear them until he starts to come round?

>i found it a bit odd the owners said 'there there' whilst he was fitting, surely they know he is unconcious at that point and cant hear them until he starts to come round?

Because that's normal human behaviour - we always talk reassuringly to those in trouble. Even if they can't hear us, it helps us to stay calm in an emergency, and that's vital. Hearing is the last sense to go, and even comatose patients' brains respond to sound. We're always told to talk to deaf people and deaf dogs, even when they can't hear us, because normal speech means normal body language.

I bet everyone here talks to their newborn puppies, and they can't hear either!

I thought the owners were filming the dog fitting rather than a film crew?  It's sad for the owners to be told they should PTS their pet.  If the condition is managed via a vet surely the vet would intervene if the situation was so dire?

I still don't understand the relevance of the fitting boxer as it sounds like this is just epilepsy as found in the general canine population and not a breed problem.  Epilepsy is fairly common in dos including mongrels and is only seen as a breed problem if it appears more often than normal.

> i found it a bit odd the owners said 'there there' whilst he was fitting, surely they know he is unconcious at that point and cant hear them until he starts to come round?

Hi sara,

I work as a Medic Instructor and First aid at work HSE assessor within my job role, we train always to talk to the casualty.There are many levels of consciousness and generally our hearing is the last sense to leave us and the first to return. A seizure with convulsions is simplistically electrical anarchy in central nervous system, hearing can be affected,impaired or absent but vicariously it *can* remain very much present Even when a casualty is Unresponsive on the AVPU scale we still talk to them as we roll them into recouvery position (due to those many levels and the possibilty of going down through them and coming back up through them)

I agree with HG.  I have epilepsy and the first sense to return as I'm coming round is my hearing, well before I can see.  I have no idea of what is going on when I have a seizure, so what happens is worse for people watching than for me. 

One of our dogs (a mongrel) has epilepsy so I'm used to seeing him have seizures, though it never gets any easier to watch.  The owner of that boxer really should be told that he really shouldn't be grabbing at him during a seizure though - very silly and likely to get him a nasty bite.  We usually just leave jack to it - make sure he can't hurt himself and keep the other dogs away from him (they get upset and may decide to attack him in their confusion - lots of baring of teeth and so on)

good post JG and very true

I still don't understand the relevance of the fitting boxer as it sounds like this is just epilepsy as found in the general canine population and not a breed problem.  Epilepsy is fairly common in dos including mongrels and is only seen as a breed problem if it appears more often than normal.

As you say, this condition is found in many dogs, whatever their parental background. The clip started with telling about the heart probs in the breed, etc, then mentioned epilepsy and that this boxer suffers with it.
To my mind, they needed a pedigree dog that has this condition, owners that are willing to have a film clip of the dog 'fitting' to be shown on air, and one where the owners are so 'hands on' during the fit and very emotional about it all will be the iceing on the cake. Please don't anyone take this the wrong way, but this piece of film was a 'good fit' especially with the 2nd one so close, to add to pure sensationalism and to prove a point (the anti breeding one). I will add, I don't think any fit is a good fit, but for the purpose of the program it was.

I would think the owners gave this piece of film simply to show what a fit was like, to be 'helpful' and most likely were conned into allowing it, in the way it was used. The film clip mentions 2 medications a day, can't find where it says 2 fits per day, and as the dog is under the vet, and the owners care a great deal for the dog (despite the unfourtunate way they handle the fits) should the time come then they and their vet, and not a hatchet crew of program watchers, should make that final decision. I do feel sorry for the owners, that this has happened to them.

I have recently had my beloved boxer (Phoebe) PTS after she battled a brain tumour for 3 months; with the brain tumour came the horrific fits then a stroke.  Boxers (so I'm told) are prone to brain tumours which in turn leads to fit's.  Phoebe lived for 10 years and was loved dearly (and is missed even more).  The programme didn't highlight the need for tests enough (as far as I was concerned), watching the boxer fit was distressing as that was what we were living with at the time which made it even more real and painful.  I send my deepest regards to the owners of the dog.

It was my impression that the footage shown was filmed by the owners. 

I also thought that the footage could have been filmed some time ago, possibly when Zack first started to have the fits in order for Zack's vet to evaluate/diagnose him,  which would explain the owners' understandably poor management of the situation.  Maybe they manage his fits very well now they know what to do!  Just a thought.